Oct 2008 Open morning quiz - "Balls, Ballots, Bollywood" - Report

Set and conducted by: J. Ramanand
Flavour: Indian Cricket, Indian Politics, Hindi Films
Participation: 29 teams

Results: (with final-within-final scores)
1st: "C-Madan ke Chinese Chakkars" B.V.Harish Kumar + Salil Bijur + Shiv Anant Tayal (draft): 70 pts
2nd: "D-Ranjeet ke Pujaaris" Anand Sivashankar + Vibhendu Tiwari + Nikhil Motlag (draft): 60 pts
3rd: "E-Lotus-eyed Eaters" Amit Varma + Pradeep Ramarathnam + Tushar Kaul (draft) :55 pts
4th: "B-Bob ke Bajrangbaliis" - Suraj Menon + Yash Marathe + Brijesh Nair (draft)
5th: "A-Shetty's Hairraisers" - Saransh Verma + Anubhav Chatterjee + Suvajit Chakraborty (draft)
6th: "F-Hercules ke Muscules" - Subhodeep Jash + Ritoban Sengupta + Abhishek Nagaraj (draft)

Elims
A 24-questions elims (split equally amongst the three topics) saw 9 teams being selected for the finals. I apologise for the problems with the videos; it tooks us three laptops before we could somehow get that going. Despite starting right on time, this snafu set us back by about 30 minutes - I hope it wasn't too inconvenient in the end.

The elims cutoff was 10.5 for the top 6 outright qualifiers, and 9 for the next 3 teams, who were split up in a "draft pick" format. This meant the top 6 teams could pick one of these 6 qualifiers, starting with the 6th-placed team to qualify. Since all three members would have to take part individually in a solo round in the finals, there was a tactical element to this.

The elims scores: A+V(19), H+S (16), S+Y (15), A+P (11.5), S+A & S+R (10.5); Abhishek+Nikhil & Brijesh+Suvajit (10) , Shiv + Tushar (9).

Finals
This consisted of three identically formatted rounds, one on each topic. Each round began with a set of four common questions for 5 pts each, followed by 10 questions on Infinite Rebounds (10 pts each), ending with 2 qns of 10 each. The last two had to be simultaneously attempted by one representative from each time. Teams were then allotted scores relative to the top score in the round (from 0 to 5).

True to billing, Team E pipped C to the top spot in the cricket set, and picked up all 5 relative points. Scores were evenly spread out in this section. However, the battle picked up in politics, with C & D sharing honours, and staying ahead of the rest. The final section was surprisingly one-sided, even though the Vibhendu-led attack of Team D swept the standings as expected. Teams A, B, and C were expected to do better, but couldn't. Unfancied F, who had been struggling till then, were a surprise 2nd place.

Finals-within-Finals
The top two teams after the regular finals were D & C (final scores in the image above). However, Team E was also admitted to the last round because they were fairly close to the top two. This last round consisted of 6 qns, 2 from each topic. Open to all three in simultanous-mode, the default scoring was 10 for a correct answer. However, if confident, teams could choose to double it but with a penalty of -5.

The first cricket qn was found to be too cryptic (perhaps even bad!). E took control of the 2nd by correctly doubling. The other two did not score, leaving the underdogs on top. E further drove in the advantage by doubling their first politics qn. C too answered correctly, but did not dare double. D got this wrong. Scores were daringly placed at C=10, D=0, E=40.

The 2nd politics question was too easy for all teams: they each cracked 20. C=30, D=20, E=60. It looked like it would be E's quiz to lose from now on.

Alas, the first films question was correctly taken on the double by both C & D, but E, playing it safe, could not answer. One question to go, and we had C=50, D=40, E=60. It was anyone's game from here. In case of ties, the team with the higher score after the main finals would win. All teams had to double this one irrespective of their answer in order to win.

The last question caused a lot of hair-scratching. Eventually C & D submitted their answers. E agonised over whether to double (they had to, otherwise D would win if they got the question right on tie-breakers), and then on the answer.

They picked the wrong one. C & D both got it right. Scores: C: 70, D: 60, E: 55.

C won the quiz as a result.

Final comments
I leave it to the participants (both finalists and others) to comment about whether they liked the questions and the format. I will put up a separate post on some of the "design" decisions behind the quiz. I must add that the format was always likely to be a little unfair to a team or two. D lost narrowly despite their leading performance in both the elims (a 3 pt margin) and the main finals (a 1.5 pt margin). But they were fairly nice about it :-). Thanks also to a patient audience, some of whom gave some terrific answers that had nonplussed even the finalists.

Thanks to everyone who came to the quiz, to Amit, Suraj & Yash for helping out with the scoring, and to Suvajit for timely help with the laptop.

I will try to make the questions available after suitable post-production.